Hen and stag party costs rocket by 18 per cent

The cost of hen and stag do costs has soared by 18 per cent over the last five years, to £171 per person, a report has found.

The cost of the average hen and stag party runs to 171 per person.

The typical stag or hen party now costs an average of £2,504 per event - up from £2,124 last year. Meanwhile, a total of 19% per cent of grooms celebrating their upcoming nuptials this year were expected to pay to attend their own stag do, up from just seven per cent in 2018, while 36 per cent of this year's brides were made to pay to attend their own hen do, up from 21 per cent in 2018.

Edinburgh is the fifth most popular European destination for hen events, beaten only by Liverpool, Brighton, London and Cardiff. However, stag parties tended to be held further afield, with

Budapest topping the list, accounting for - 8.6 per cent of total bookings, followed by Prague and Benidorm. The only UK city to make it into the stag party top ten was Newcastle.

Dan Collacott, head of marketing for www.chillisauce.com, which carried out the research, said: “We wanted to analyse hen and stag data to see how spending habits compare between the sexes and how they have changed – both in the past year and also over the past five years.

"It’s surprising to see how many hens and stags now expect the bride and groom-to-be to pay for themselves on their last celebration before they get married. It could well be because they are opting for more lavish activities, therefore everyone is having to spend more and simply cannot afford to pay for themselves as well as someone else. What’s more, it’s interesting to see that hen dos typically prefer to stay here in the UK, while stag groups are eager to explore Europe.”